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Mike and I recently got back from hosting CookieCon 2012. It was so much fun! We had such a great group of cookie-loving people together for a weekend of cookie decorating and cookie-art appreciating! I will do a post about the actual event soon, but I wanted to give a huge thank you and shout-out to our awesome sponsors. One of the things that made it so much fun was the their amazing and generous support. Here’s a peek inside the goody bags:

We had a few left-overs from our goody bag assembly, so we’re going to give away some bundles of goodies to those who weren’t able to attend this year. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First let’s talk about what was in the bags!

Mandy Wallington from Kool Cookie Cutters came all the way from Perth, Australia to attend CookieCon , and she brought with her gum leaf cookie cutters, handmade in Australia! So awesome!

Julia M. Usher came and demonstrated how to use stencils, (among other awesome things! Thank you Julia!!). Designer Stencils is THE place for culinary stencils, and they donated a stencil to every attendee. This one can be used for brush embroidery. So cool!

Along with the donation of one of their awesome projectors as a grand prize, Kopykake donated a gift pack of frosting sheet decals to everyone. We had fun playing with them during open decorating.

Patrick from Plastics in Print sent a cutter for everyone. Their custom cutters are very reasonably priced and they also have some really fun stock shapes.

Fondarific sent a sample of their delicious fondant for everyone to try. Did you know they have fondant in lots of fun flavors? Buttercream, mocha, grape, peppermint…. just to name a few. It is great fondant!

Fancy Flours sent some really fun wafer paper sheets for everyone. The attendees got to play around with them during the open decorating session, and it was so much fun to watch what they did with the wafer paper. Very fun! Have you tried wafer paper yet?

Kip and Connie from BRP Box Shop came and participated in CookieCon. They were such a fun addition, and we were so happy to have them there! In addition to donating an awesome grand prize (A BRP- Branded BIKE!), and a Half-as-Grand second prize (a BRP-Branded UNICYCLE!), they also gave generous gift packs of their boxes and bags. Look what was in there!

Amazing, right? If you haven’t checked out BRP Box Shop yet, do yourself a favor and head right over there. They are a great company with the prettiest boxes available. They also debuted a limited-edition Ornament Box and gave one to everybody. Go check those out before they’re gone!

Americolor Corp (THE place for the best food coloring out there) donated a bottle of their awesome Soft Gel Paste coloring to everyone.

This one blew everybody’s mind. Nielsen-Massey Vanilla sent a 2-oz bottle of their Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla to everyone! Such a fun surprise and generous addition to the goody bags.

In addition to a grand prize of a $150 gift certificate, Country Kitchen Sweet Art donated a fondant impression mat to everyone. The attendees had lots of fun playing with fondant and impression mats during Open Decorating.

Sylvia from Foose Cookie Cutters donated so many fun goodies! In addition to an awesome gift basket loaded with cutters, she also donated more than 20 gift sets of cutters to be given away, and a set of adorable mini cutters, note pad, and coupon for the goody bags.

Karen’s Cookies (that’s me!) donated a little gift pack of fun stuff to each attendee. Here’s what was in it:

We included both of Pam (Cookie Crazie)’s new exclusive cutters— the Homespun Christmas Tree and the Cupcake that we are selling through our site. We also included a PME tip, a disco dust, a pixie dust shaker, and a boo-boo stick.

I don’t have a picture of the next one because we used all of them in the goody bags. Kee-Seal donated two of their disposable decorating bags to each attendee, along with some gift packs of their bags to be given as prizes. They are great bags! Definitely check them out.

So that was what was in the bags! Although this post is dedicated to the gift bag items, I want to also mention the other awesome sponsors we had. They were just as generous, and donated prizes that were not in the gift bags:

A huge thank you to all of the generous sponsors of CookieCon! You helped make it an awesome and memorable event for all those who were in attendance.

Now for those of you who weren’t able to attend, we have a chance for you to win some of this fun stuff! We don’t have complete goody bags left. We just had a few extras of some of the items. So what we are doing is giving away “bundles”– kind of like a grab-bag. Comment on this post and we will randomly choose 8 of you (through Random.org) and send you a fun bundle of goodies. Please comment by Wednesday, November 21 at midnight (wherever you are!). International entries are welcome. I will try to get the winners announced on Thanksgiving, but I might be too sleepy from all the carbs…. so I reserve the right to announce the winners on Friday.🙂

We’d love to offer these prizes to people who didn’t already get this stuff from CookieCon. So to be eligible, please indicate that you didn’t make it to CookieCon this year. And you can also feel free to wish Mike’s mom, Lorene, a happy birthday! Have a great week!

It was so fun to read about and see all the wonderful pictures from CookieCon! I can’t wait until I can attend one and meet all the wonderful and talented cookiers I read so much about🙂 Wishing Lorene a very Blessed birthday!

Your sponsors were very generous, as are you for offering these in a giveaway for those of us who could not make it to CookieCon. Congrats for a wonderful event. Happy Birthday to Lorene. Enter me for this stupendous stash!

Happy Birthday to Mike’s mom Lorene🙂
I couldn’t make it to Cookie Con this year and I’m sorry that I had to miss it. Every re-cap post that I’ve read on it is so wonderfully happy. Everyone who was able to attend was so happy that they did and they all had nothing but the highest praise for you and Mike and all the hard work that you two put in to making this event such a pleasurable experience for all the attendees. I know that plans are in the works for Cookie Con Two and I’m hoping to be able to attend.

If there needed to be ANOTHER reason to attend CookieCon! What a wonderful goodie bag. Oh, I would love any single piece in there. Thanks for having a give away…and I would love to try and attend next year!

I didn’t attend CookieCon because I’ve never heard of it and would love more info on it. It sounds like a lot of fun. Would love some goodies from the event though! Thanks for the inspiration.
Melissa Kurras

Happy Birthday to Lorene! I couldn’t attend CookieCon this year. I am learning cookie decorating so that I can impress my little girls!🙂
Would love to add more stuff to my baking/decorating supplies! Pick me!

Hey! What an amazing give away!! I missed CookieCon (from The Netherlands, saving money already for next year’s Con lol)
Seen a lot of pictures (jealoussssss lol)
So count me iin for this great give away!

Happy Birthday Lorene! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a flight to CookieCon this year…but watch out – I am so there next time🙂 I love hearing all the stories and seeing the pictures from my girlfriends that did get to go.

I’m still kicking myself for not going to CookieCon. Looks like you ladies had a blast! Hopefully I can make it next year!! Any chance it will be on the East Coast? I’m on Long Island – lots of great places to host here! hint, hint ;o)

Aww. Thank you so much for giving us non attendees a chance at getting some goodies!! I wish I could have attended Cookie Con and met all my awesome cookier friends. Maybe next year! Oh, and happy birthday Lorene!! xx

Happy Birthday Wishes, Lorene!! CookieCon sounds like it was a fun time!! How sweet of you to share the leftovers with all of us who couldn’t attend. Thanks for the opportunity to win some treats! ~karen

It sounds like Cookie Con was a huge success, I hope to be able to make it to the next one! I have really enjoyed seeing all the pictures! It sure would be cool to be able to win one of the bundles, what a really neat consolation prize that would be. Thanks for all you do for all of us in the Cookie world! And Happy Birthday Lorene!

Happy, happy Birthday Mike’s Mommy!!! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend CookieCon but I’ve been enjoying reading about it and seeing some of the pictures in several blogs. I soooo hope I can make the next one.

I hope to make it to CookieCon someday!! Happy birthday Lorene!
I would love any of the goodie bags.
I hope there will be a coupon soon so I can order more supplies from you guys!!!
Wishing everyone a happy Thanskgiving!

I started decorating cookies last Valentines day and have been hooked ever since. When I found out there was a convention about cookies…I freaked! I wasn’t able to make it this year but I will for sure be attending one in the future. To be in the presence of all that talent would be amazing! Happy Birthday Lorene! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Looks like everyone had a lot of fun and there were some pretty nice gifts!!! Makes me wish I could have gone. If EVER there is a cookie con in CHICAGO….Ill be the first one signing up!
Thanks for the chance to win!
Ansa

wow! sounds like I missed out on the best convention in the world! hope to make it next time (from Israel) (cant wait…)
cookiecon is the greatest idea ever!!! Happy Birthday Lorene! I wish you Health, Happiness and love.

Oh my goodness I so wish I had been able to go. Seeing all of the blogs recounting the event is the next best thing, however makes me wish even more I’d gone!! Hopefully next year I will get to meet all the fabulous cookie designers at cookie con 2013!!🙂

I guess you had a lot of fun. One thing I’m sure of it, it was not a goody bag, it was a TREASURE BOX🙂 Wish I’v been there too. Maybe one of these days (a dream come true). Happy Thanksgiving day to everyone.

Thank you for posting on this event. I would love to be able to attend something like this. You guys are terrific decorators! I roam around your sites everyday just waiting for new posts. Will definitely look at these vendors sites.

The gift bags look like they were fantastic! I love the world of cookie decorating, so many generous people, you guys included 🙂 I was sad that I couldn’t make it to Cookie Con this year and am already looking forward to the next event!

Aw, I did not go to Cookie Con, but I’ve read a few of the blogs from some who were able to attend…& it really sounds like it was a BLAST!! Hope to make it next time around–it would be such an awesome experience! But in the meantime, I’d be okay with some left over goodies😉

I am new to decorating cookies. I bake the cookies and invite my 7 grandkids over, ages 3 to 15. We’re all getting better and more creative each time. I am so amazed at how much can be done to cookies and enjoy all the pictures I can see. Thank-you for sharing.

hi, its great that u guys had a cookier community and fun event such CookieCon. i’m from Malaysia and here no such event ever organized, due not so many expert cookier here. i’m a beginner in cookie decorating and had a lot of fun and gain infos from your blogs and other cookiers’..

Hi, i just wanne to say that i love your cookie decorating .
I just found your blog ,and i love it.
I live in the netherlands and just started to find out how to decoraties cupcakes .
Yesterday i made soms cookies and put icing on it bad it didd’t work out.
But practicing is the best way to learn how to do it and see a 1lot of video’s on youtube …
So thanks for your great cooking examples ..

Happy bday Lorraine! I didn’t go to Cookie Con (though I’d love to find out more about what it is…), so I would be very happy to win a grab bag of goodies! I’m amazed at the generous gifts that were sent for cookiers! If I don’t win those cutters, though, I might have to just buy them… c@

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LORENE!!!! Thanks for giving birth to Mike……the cookie world is a better place because of him, as well as the fabulous wife he married!!!! I WISH I could have been a Cookie Con….saving up my pennies for the next one!!!!! I hear you both did an AMAZING job at covering all the bases!!!!! Now it’s time to rest a bit!!! Love, Lynda lmcgmsing@yahoo.com

Just seeing and reading about CookieCon really makes me jealous🙂, I mean in a good way.. What A Concentrated Cookie Fun that must have been!
Anyway it would be awesome to win some of these great gifts. I need to get out more and get some new cutters and tools.
Thanks for hosting a giveaway Karen and Happy Thanksgiving.

Wowza! Karen & Mike, what a great giveaway! You guys are so sweet to do these grab bags for us cookiers that didn’t make it to CookieCon. Winning any of these prizes would be fantastic! Thank you so much! Happy Birthday, Lorene! My birthday was Nov. 10th! What a great month it is to have a birthday. -Joey

To be honest if it wasn’t for cookiecrazie’s blog i never would have heard of CookieCon, but now that I know about it I really want to attend. Been decorating for six years….can’t believe I’ve never been there. Thanks for the giveaway and Happy Birthday to Lorene. May God richly bless your special day!

Happy, Happy Birthday Lorene! Didn’t get to Cookie Con this year but my husband has already been notified I’ll be attending the next one. Thank you so much for planning it all – the photos have caused drooling on my iPad!

I would have loved to have been at CookieCon, – I am so glad people in the cookie community are so generous with sharing details (and goodies) for those of us who missed it. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and happy birthday to Mike’s mom!

Happy Birthday, Lorene!
I wasn’t able to attend CookieCon…bummer! What a great group of people gathering together to make cookies!! I can’t wait until I am able to attend!
Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Cookie Making!!
glenda

There have been so many great blog posts from all the cookiers out there since everyone got back from Cookie Con. Sounds like it was a great time and you did a great job of hosting it! How sweet of you to share the leftover goodies with us. Thanks!

I would have loved to have gone to CookieCon, maybe next time! It is a long way from Australia, so having it somewhere easy to get to (West Coast) and plenty of notice on the dates would be great🙂 The Homespun Christmas Tree is gorgeous and the pixie dust shaker is just a fantastic idea!!

I sooo wish I could have attended CookieCon. But it’s certainly on my list for next year. You got amazing sponsers including yourselves. Winning sure would be a great way to celebrate my birthday tomorrow, maybe I’ll be lucky. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Happy Birthday to Mom too!
Thanks for a great giveaway Karen!
Michelle

I’m so disappointed that I wasn’t able to make it!!! Those are really GREAT Goody Bags!!! I was so glad to see so many companies generously support Cookie Con. I’m glad you shared this info; it certainly gave me insight into the companies that appreciate their customers!! Now I know which companies I want to support.

I would LOVE to win a Goody Bag-that would really make my day!!!

Is Cookie Con always the same time of year? I want to plan now for next year!!!

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to win some of these items, missed CookieCon because I hosted Chapix Cookies from Mexico City in Tijuana and had to make some orders for those days. Definitely won’t miss the next CookieCon😀

First of all Happy Birthday to Mike’s mom. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Thanks for all the great links to all the products you use. When I first started I used Cake Craft (a store in Red Bank, New Jersey had them) icing colors and they worked great, a little went a long way. Now I use Wilton but sometimes it seems I need quite alot of coloring to get the right color. Amazingly while I still have somre of my original colors from Cake Craft from years ago, I have gone through Wilton’s rather quickly. So, I will be checking out the one you mentioned above. I would love to win a sample of it🙂
And no, I did not attend, so I would love to be entered in this giveaway. Thank you.

Congratulations on a successful Cookie Con! The blogging world has been singing your praises, you must be very proud to have brought all the amazing cookie people together. Would love to receive a bundle of goodies – will help cheer up the grey UK autumn!

This package looks totally AWESOME and I would absolutely love to be the proud owner of one!! Cookie Con sounds so fun I’d there ever going to be one in Indy? Thanks for all you do for us cookie decorators!!

Thank you so much for your amazing website and wonderful tips. I have learned so much about cookie decorating from your website. I have been making and decorating cookies for a few years just for fun and friends/family but ii am becoming “cookie decorating addicted” more and more every time I go to your website. Thank you for your kindness in sharing with us newbies and beginners. I feel like I “win” something every time I learn something new from you. Thanks again and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! Blessings to you and your family.

I just recently started getting on my cookie page regularly and heard about cookiecon about a week ahead of time. I’m hoping to be able to make it next year. This is an awesome giveaway. Happy Holidays to you and your family

I had not heard of CookieCon until after it was over and I wish that I had known that it existed! I would love to attend something like this to get some great ideas and meet other cookiers! I hope that i hear about it early enough next year to attend! Your cookies are beautiful!! Have a Happy Holiday and Happy Birthday Lorene!🙂

I was so thrilled when “the cookie ladys” posted pictures from cookie con b/c I wished I could have gone. Maybe next year!! Thanks Karen and Mike for making such great cookie making tools available to us!!

I would have loved to go to CookieCon this year but couldn’t make it – maybe next year. It would be awesome to win one of the grab bags – a lot of fun in there I’m sure. Thanks for the opportunity. Lorene, have a wonderful day.

Happy Birthday Lorene!!!! I did not attend CookieCon this year, but man…I sure wish I could have! Those goody bags look AMAZING! I would LOVE the opportunity to win one of the grab bags! All the cookie cutters, tools and gadgets, boxes, etc. look awesome! They’d definitely come in handy with my cookie decorating🙂

Aww…what a great giveaway! Happy Birthday Lorene! I wasn’t able to attend Cookie Con but would have LOVED to attend….ALL the cookie GREATS in on room…would be a GREAT experience! Maybe one day, I’ll be able to attend.

I would love going to the Cookiecon but I live a little far, in Argentina.
I wish Lorene a Happy Birthday and leave a comment to win the prize!
Thank you Karen and Mike, in February i´ll be placing my anual order.
Thank you so much! Love your blog!!

Unfortunately I was not at cookie con =( I swear one of these days ill make it there to meet all these talented ladies =) I have learned alot from them and it would be so nice to thank them in person =) but for now I’m enjoying being a new mommy and itching to get back to baking! I would love to win the gifts you gave away. It’s always fun to try out new things and expand what you do. Ps I LOVE that vanilla! It’s all I use! It’s expensive but well worth every penny =)

Cookie Con looked so amazing, I wish there was something similar over here in Australia for us cookie lovers to go to .. please think about it!!! Happy birthday to mikes mum and big waves all the way from Hobart, Tasmania .. Happy Cookie-ing!!🙂

I didn’t get to Cookie Con, but I delivered 2 of your Crazy Cookie Cuties to the hotel and then oohed and ahhed over all of their fun stuff. I could tell it was fabulous. I have seen some picture posts and could tell everyone had a wonderful time, including your sponsors and you and Mike who worked yourselves to the bone. What a great thing you did and how much fun for all of these crazies who have been exchanging ideas on facebook to actually get to meet each other. Well done! And Happy Birthday Lorene. I haven’t met Mike, but we’ve spoken and exchanged a couple of emails and you did a fine job with that son!

happy birthday mike’s mom i wish you the best birthday ever. and thanks so much karen for give us the chance to have all this wonderful things for those of us that couln’t make it. i am so waiting that you give us the date for next year hopefully we can know that soon🙂

I wish that we would have some shows like the Cookie Con here downunder as well!!! I would 1000% be there!🙂
Thank you for the giveaway, so lovely to do something for those who couldn’t make it🙂
And Happy Birthday Lorene I hope you had an awesome day!

First, Happy Birthday Mrs. Lorene and Happy Thanksgiving! I sadly missed out on all of the fun…didn’t even know about CookieCon until it was over (I’m new to this wonderful world of cookies!). It would be awesome to pretend I was there while using all the goodies from one of those “grab-bags”!

Karen … I have to admit, this is the first I have ever heard of Cookie Con, so needless to say I was not in attendance. So many awesome little goodies … even a small sampling would be a cool treat for any one of us! So gracious of you to offer!

I see you have some really neat new cutters in the shop … now that I am settled in my new home, and my business is up and running again, you will be seeing me every once in a while again. The customer service you offered up with the dishwasher friendly experiment with the button molds was hands down the best I have experienced yet.

Giday from Australia!
Can you believe it,My husband found COOKIE CON advert when surfing the web 3 weeks prior to the event ,AND he gave me his blessing to attend it! God Bless him. If only the budget allowed!!! Anyway, maybe next year I shall come from Melbourne. Please post next years dates really early.( I’m starting to save now!) I feel so starved of any cookie decorating anything here, and love following your posts and others like you. A weekend would NOT be long enough .Such talent that lies in the USA and Canada. I can only marvel at it all. And of the prices and availability of everything in the States. You really would not believe what I have to pay for supplies here.
Any Who, you ladies are so very generous with imparting your knowledge and for this I thank you. I am truely greatful. I feel very blessed.
Happy birthday too…..May your Koalas never fall out of your trees!

Awesome sponsers, thanks for the chance to win some goodies !! I wasn’t able to attend Cookie Con this year, but really hope that next time I will be able to. I must say, with all the blog posts and photos I’ve seen and read, it looks like everyone that did attend had a wonderful time and made lots of new friends. Wishing a Very Happy Birthday to Lorene🙂

Happy Birthday Lorene, you share a birthday with my one and only gorgeous sister. I didn’t make it to Cookie Con as I live in Western Australia, but will be trying to pull out all the stops to get there next time, will have to start saving! Thanks for letting us (international participants) participate in this give-away !🙂
Christine de Klerk of Bickie Blessings

I wasn’t able to make it to Cookie Con this year but maybe in the future I will…. I’m just blown away by all the talented cookie artists out there…They are indeed an inspiration to all…And Happy Birthday Lorene🙂

How wonderful! I am so sad I couldn’t go but I have enjoyed all of the posts everyone has been putting up about Cookie Con. It makes you feel like you were there.Great giveaway, would love to win! Thanks for sharing!

I did not go to CookieCon. I have enjoyed reading about it though. Would love to get a bag of goodies. Just getting started with cookie decorating. Learning a lot. Happy Birthday to Lorene. Hope all have a good Thanksgiving.

I wish so much that I could have made it to cookie con, it sounds like you all had a great time, and received some awesome gifts. I am really going to try for next year. Also I hope that Lorene has a very happy birthday!!

God bless you Lorene and have a very happy birthday! I was not able to go to the CookieCon but that will be a dream come true like DisneyLand for kids. I will keep hoping it will come true someday,in the meantime winning the sweepstakes will be the next best thing. Have a beautiful day on Thursday!

Wow, what an incredible package!! How incredibly generous! Happy Birthday Lorene! I would love to attend the next CookieCon. I was so sad I couldn’t make it out to this one as it was in my home-state…and I now live in Vermont! Maybe next year! Happy Holidays to everyone!!

I couldn’t get to Cookie Con this time but am very excited to hear there will be another….I loved all your pictures and it sounded fabulous. Also happy t-day to you and your family. I am thankful everyday for Karen’s Cookies and your wonderful service and blog.

Cookie Con sounds exciting! I love all the goodies you displayed and would be THRILLED at a surprise package! I will keep my fingers crossed that I am one of the lucky people! Thanks for offering the opportunity!😉

I don’t know if I’ve made it in time to this fabulous give away! I’m just getting into cookie decorating. I was surfing the internet and found your blog. I joined your newsletter to make sure I don’t miss your postings.🙂 I would love to win this prize. It would be a great start to my new hobby. I never knew there was a CookieCon….sounds like so much fun!! Thank you for the chance at winning.